Different meanings

The collective noun murmuration dates back to at least the 15th century, when it was used to describe a flock of stares, an old word for starling. It did not specifically refer to starlings in flight until much more recently. In 1932, the poet W H Auden wrote of “a murmuration of starlings, rising in joy…”, but in Mervyn Peake’s 1946 novel Titus Groan, the author described a murmuration of starlings perched in a grove of leafless elms.